So, I was in Turkey for a while there, yeah? Now I am in Gatwick and I haven't slept for approximately 19,993424832942 hours and my flight gate doesn't even OPEN for another two hours. SO HERE WE ARE.

Some things happened on my holidays:

I went out with no results or job, but I'm coming back with an honours degree and a job I wanted, so yay for that! Only, everyone has been scaring me with solemn tales of how terribly, horrendously, stupendously difficult it is to get veins in renal patients. Guess which service I'm starting on? (Renal's actually one I really, really wanted ... just not FIRST.)

I rode a camel! Otherwise my holiday was very lazy, a lot of reading and catnapping and water-sliding. I did not enjoy nightclubbing in Turkey, so fortunately I was only prevailed upon to do it once. I was pretty horrified by the grinding poverty of the country in which we lived on a little sandpile of ridiculous luxury (three course four star meals for the equivalent of fifteen euro, etc). I don't think I'll be going back.

I did, however, get a proposal of marriage. I could be the second wife of a Turkish jeweller AS WE SPEAK. So there.

Oh boy, I'm so behind on everything lj-related. And my laptop, which I stepped on, resulting in a broken screen, will take six weeks to repair due to the stupid ash cloud. I'll practically be WORKING by then. Whatever shall I dooooooooo? (Aside from use a pen and paper, I mean. And watch where I put my feet...)

Renal patients are the worst when they have more than just kidney problems going on, ugh ugh ugh. On the bad side of things, they're usually on dialysis so most of their veins are shot. It's sometimes hard to find one to even poke in the first place. On the good side, they usually can tell you where to try for it. They know their sites. So. XD

As to tips... Don't forget to check the feet. Sometimes it makes the ER staff cranky when you bring in a patient with an IV in their foot, but it's better than no IV at all.

I'm honestly not sure about the blood pressure cuff thing -- it would seem like you'd get better flow that way, yes, but not necessarily have the veins more accessible.

Sometimes you can stick two tourniquets on, and that helps. Also, knowing vein anatomy -- sometimes they're there, just too deep to really be able to palpate well.